Tag: dina wakley

Hello, fabulous Lulu Art fans – I’m back today with a really simple art journal page, something I would usually do for myself as playtime! Recently I was lucky enough to lave a cuppa (Australia for a drink and a chat) with the fabulous Kylie fowler from Lulu Art (yes THAT Kylie!) seriously how lucky am I!!! We were chatting about the art we do for fun – you know the sort, not for any particular purpose or project – but just because. Kylie mentioned that she doesn’t see ‘my’ play stuff anywhere and I realised that she is right – I just don’t share it! So today I’m sharing something I would usually create for myself and then maybe decorate or maybe not! It’s a very simple background created with one of the easiest acrylic paint techniques I know of – Paint Scraping.

Start by grabbing at least 3 colors of acrylic paint – I’m using some of the new Pastel colors from Dina Wakley (you know I love these) and after much consideration, I decided on Apricot, Mineral and Carnation.

Use an old credit card or a fancy paint scraper to add one color at a time to the page – I explain this more in the video below.

You can see the paint scraping technique here

Add a hint of glamour by adding some Golden Irridescent Gold Fine fluid acrylic and a few splashes of Lindy’s sprays in grey and purple and then leave the whole page to dry. Then you can begin decorating! Now the time between this process of background and decorating can take me anywhere from a few days to a few years – I have many MANY undecorated background pages. Honestly, I just love to play and experiment and a finished page doesn’t always mean pretty or decorated for me.

For this page, I’ve mixed a custom paint color (Lapis and Night) to make Navy and added a very simple leafy flourish which I’ve embellished using paint over pens, paint pens, and a metallic gold ballpoint pen. A little stenciling, some stamping with Archival ink and I’m calling this page finished.

I think it’s the small details that bring this one together, the stencils, the little touches of colors in multiple tones (light to dark) and some stickers to finish it all off.

Back into my journal again… and you know I love to splash the paint around in there!
So… considering that I will be working closely with the “Art by Marlene” brand this year and Lulu Art stocks such a wide range of her lovely products, I thought I would grab one of her stencils, and a couple of Studio Light stamps in her range and see where we end up.

Well hello Lulu Art fans, today I’m going to play with something new, Dina Wakley Pouring Medium – it’s fun and a little scary and my friend Kylie who owns Lulu Art, thinks I’m about to make a huge mess, she might just be right (though I hope not)!

Pouring Medium is an acrylic medium that you mix with Dina Wakley acrylic paint (or any acrylic paint really). This mixture becomes a pourable, fluid paint that you play with to create interesting effects. To help you create cells in your pours, we also created Cell Creator. Just a few drops in your pour mixtures creates serious MAGIC!

So how do you use Pouring Medium and Cell Creator?

Start by adding a little Dina Wakley paint into a small mixing bowl or cup – use a different bowl for each color. I think perhaps limit the colors to 5-7 different colors to begin – just so you don’t make a really big mess!

Add the Dina Wakley Pouring medium to each cup, a good ratio to use is 1 part paint to 4 parts pouring medium

Stir gently with a spoon or paddle pop stick

Add 1 drop of the Cell creator to some of the paint mixes for larger cells, or add more for smaller cells, you can try adding more to one color of paint and see what happens

Tip each paint mixture over your surface – one after another
OR for a DIRTY POUR tip all of the paint into one bowl or cup and quickly upend this over your surface

Tilt the surface or encourage the paint to move across the surface using a brush or paddle pop stick to create interesting patterns and effects

Once happy with your design leave it to dry. Drying time depends on your climate, more humidity means a longer drying time – give it at least 24 hours.

For my mixed media journal cover, I also created a little combination of Lindy’s Magicals mixed with water and Pouring medium and added this to the mix (next time I would NOT add any water to this as it made it too runny) and I also added some glitter – again I wouldn’t add this to a colored pour as it got lost – looked way better sprinkled over the top.

To finish off the journal cover I’ve added stamped images and then embellished with paint pens and stenciled images and a few paint drips – keeping it simple!

I’ve created a video so you can watch my little experiment and see how I finished off my journal cover just in case you might like to try something similar.

Tips

The pouring medium dries to a satin finish, though depending on the acrylic paint you’ve used it can turn out quite matt.

The book is designed with tear out pages and different types of paper so you can work right onto them and cut them out, add them to your journal pages, or in fact, journal right within the book… so many pretty images to choose from!

We’re so excited that Dina will be visiting us here in Noosa this weekend to do 3 days of classes with over 70 lucky ladies! To celebrate Dina’s visit to Australia we have asked her to answer a few questions.

Also I’d like to let you all know that all Dina Wakley Media products (paint, brushes, stencils, stamps, mediums, etc) will be on sale in the store from Friday 27th November through until Monday 30th November so take advantage of 10% off these scrumptious goodies while stocks last.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I am Dina, I have a hubby and three sons (ages 20, 18, and 16). I live in the desert near Phoenix, AZ.

How/when did you get interested in art?

I started scrapbooking in 1995 and stamping in 1996. Then I discovered mixed media and then started art journaling in 2005. I’ve kept a personal journal since I was nine, so art journaling was a natural fit.

Can you remember one of the first things you drew/painted?

My first art journal page was about how I didn’t feel comfortable calling myself an artist. The first face I painted was out of proportion and sort of Modigliani-esque, but I loved it because I had never done it before.

What’s your favourite piece of work that you have created?

I don’t really choose favourites but I do have some journal pages I like more than others.

Do you have a favourite artist?

I love Basquiat, Jasper Johns, Raschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler.

What’s the best thing about being an artist?

Being creative makes me happy. 🙂

Do you like to have music playing while you create and if so, what kind of music do you listen to that inspires you?

Sometimes. I have eclectic tastes (Brandi Carlile for her song writing, Muse for it’s rocking-awesomeness, Foo Fighters for rock, Anouk, Patty Griffin, so many more).

What is your favourite thing that you often include in your work? (e.g. faces, quotes, birds, etc)

I like to draw people/faces. It’s satisfying to draw something that looks back at you.

What are you doing when you’re not creating?

Take care of my family! Even though my boys are big, they still need me. We have lots of activities, etc. I like to read and cook, too.

What are your favourite products to use?

My paint of course! And I love the Stabilo All pencil and Neocolor II crayons.

Hello, it’s Robyn with you today asking a very deep question. Possibly easy to answer if you look at the word band I’ve used on my project!

I like to have little pieces of inspiration around me – images pinned to my little notice board, words and quotes collected in my little dedicated ‘quote’ Moleskin notebook or on the various pieces of art I buy to decorate the walls in my study. The more I are journal, the more I’m creating little pieces just for myself which carry words to inspire.

The project features a new product for LuLu Art – mica tiles. Mica is a mineral, mined from the ground in countries like Africa and South America and it has a lovely layered structure which can be pulled apart and inked, painted, diecut, punched, cut, torn, embossed, the list goes on. Colours can vary and depending on how careful you are in pulling it apart, the sheets can be quite thick to whisper thin. If you look closely, you will see that the tiles are very slightly translucent and have differing colours – very similar to amber.

Many of us already know and use mica – it’s in our lipsticks, eye shadows, metallic car paint, glittery body products, even shampoo! As crafters we have been using mica for ages as Twinkling H2O’s, pearlescent stamping inks, Pearl Ex and glimmery mists. Ok, I’ll take my scientist hat off now and show you my project!

I hope you enjoy learning how this project comes together. Once you have the supplies assembled, it comes together pretty quickly. If you use mica in a project, I’d love to see a picture. Upload it to the LuLu Art & Friends Facebook page or leave a comment on my blog, www.purplesalt.net

Hello! It’s Robyn with you today sharing an art journal page using some brand new Dina Wakley stamps. I tend to love anything insect themed, so when these cute stamps came in they were in my hands so fast! I love the size of the images – perfect for cards, tags or art journaling. This page comes together quite quickly once the butterflies are stamped, coloured and trimmed – I love how the sparkly butterflies gently pop out of the page. You can easily substitute with different colours or maybe use a different type of background all together!

Art Journal Page by Robyn Wood

Don’t forget that as designers we love sharing our knowledge of products sold in the store, so if there is something you would like to know how to use or a technique that you would love to learn – drop us a line and we will see what we can do. Personally, I love a challenge and am always happy to play with something new, in the interests of education of course! (really I just like to buy ‘new’ products)